Charles Turner (1928–2003), composer and teacher based in New York, was introduced to Barber by Gore Vidal in 1950 and soon became part of the entourage at Capricorn. Barber, Menotti, and Turner, along with the conductor Thomas Schippers, shared summer retreats in Maine and Italy. Turner was also a violinist who performed the Violin Concerto under Barber's baton in Germany in 1951, to the composer's great satisfaction. Souvenirs was dedicated to Turner, and Barber entrusted the score of his final work, Canzonetta for Oboe and Strings, to him to orchestrate.

I met Turner again in New York in 1990, and in a subsequent letter he gave me some of his own background: “My first orchestral work in 1956 [probably Encounter] was played by Szell, Reiner, Mitropolous and Schippers, in that order, and another work was played by Schippers at the Philharmonic in 1964. A ballet commissioned by Lincoln Kirstein had success and many performances by all the major companies for ten years and was revived last year and called a masterpiece by some critics [Dark Pastorale, choreographed by Francisco Moncion; see The New York Times, February 15, 1957]. I have taught harmony, counterpoint, orchestration, all those composition things, for forty years and every week some former student's work appears here. This week it is John Zorn with a Kronos Quartet commission. I studied with Barber for five years—Boulanger before that—and I am the only pupil he ever put through the same training he got from Scalero at Curtis.”

Earlier, after I had sent him a copy of the BBC Radio 3 documentary based on the interviews in this book, Turner wrote: “I think you did a splendid job. It is so sensitively and intelligently done and gives such a good picture of Sam and his music. The most clear-eyed speakers were Copland, Schuman and Hitchcock, I thought. Menotti romanticized and distorted a little, and so did Browning, but they always do, and that too is interesting. I liked the Rashomon quality you got at times. Do you remember that Japanese film in which three people who have seen the same thing describe it differently?”

Interview

PD What was Samuel Barber like?

CT Well, he was a very witty man. His wit is rather hard to capture.